


Interlude III

by AnnetheCatDetective



Series: Interludes [3]
Category: Murdoch Mysteries
Genre: Episode Related, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:15:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23455369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnetheCatDetective/pseuds/AnnetheCatDetective
Summary: Jack's POV on Watts showing up on his doorstep.Some bits of the dialogue from AIOS included, but I gloss over most of what's said in favor of just being in Jack's head, and how differently he perceives Llewellyn to how he'd perceived himself etc.
Relationships: Jack Walker/Llewellyn Watts
Series: Interludes [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1679167
Comments: 21
Kudos: 47





	Interlude III

_Llewellyn_. His name is Llewellyn. It would roll off the tongue, if Jack could bring himself to use it-- he’s not sure if he can. And he’s quick-witted, even when he trips over his tongue a little or pauses mid-sentence to suck in a deep breath, he’s…

He’s good. Offbeat, but smooth enough. Smooth enough for Jack, who hasn’t been flirted with in long enough. He hasn’t been flirted with like _this_ in a good couple of months, a little more-- somewhere along the line, as his relationship with Owen had begun its decline, as he’d begun to understand but not accept that they should have stayed friends and not lovers, when some of the attentions had begun to dry up… he hadn’t wanted to be flirted with by Owen’s other friends, even though to be fair to Owen he was never a jealous man and would have happily shared him if he’d wished to be shared. He hadn’t wanted to meet more people then, but… he’d burned some of his bridges, perhaps, when he and Owen parted ways. He hadn’t liked those parties and had rarely let himself be coaxed into attending, the risk had been so much, but it left him with no one else. His book club, yes, but he and Aldous had clicked into something very different, as the only two younger-and-unattached gentlemen in the group, they could tease each other but they couldn’t flirt, it never felt right.

It’s… something, to be flirted with again. It’s something, the way Detective Llewellyn Watts does it, wide-eyed and disarmingly earnest. Nervous, but in spite of those nerves, such a way of speaking, as he makes the argument that he is _so_ poor a choice of company as to make the dangers of a policeman associating with a known homosexual pale in comparison. It’s… absurd. But there’s something about it Jack can’t help but find… _cute_.

He finds _Llewellyn_ cute.

And he is understanding-- that, more than any flirtation, makes his company very welcome indeed. He carries his own sadness, he talks about grief and loss like it’s an old friend. He knows what it is, and… and there’s no one else Jack can properly mourn with. He doesn’t belong with Owen’s friends. And he doesn’t want to mourn him as a lover-- just as a friend, with… complications. He wants to have the full run of his memories and feelings, but among his own friends who know Owen as his former lover, it’s difficult. They expect him to grieve as a lover, or they expect him to feel nothing so strong as he does because he’d been hurt by the parting. And out in the rest of the world, he can’t grieve deeply enough. But this man… he comes here, and he gives him the space to define his own grief, and he says it like he knows. And he says that he believes Jack is an honest man… 

He scratches at his jaw, right hand to lefthand side, the same sort of nervous habit he’d displayed down in the cells, and he doesn’t quite ask how Jack recognized him as one of his own kind, but he dances close to it with the question he does ask.

And Jack remembers the interview room, the coldness of it, the intimidation of sitting across from the inspector, all his old friendliness gone, and the imposingly stern-looking detective in the severe black suit with the severely sleek hair, and the penetrating gaze, and the suspicion that they both regarded him with… and he remembers that Detective Watts had been small despite his height, in the chair beside his own, and that his voice had been soft and his eyes had been sympathetic. 

It had meant something, to be on the same side.

He says as much.

“I should tell you…” Llewellyn hesitates. He tucks his head down, thumbnail scratching absently or anxiously at his chin. His eyes darting up, away. 

“Yes?”

“My handwriting is atrocious.” He says, and it’s not what he was going to say. That ‘I should tell you’ had held too much weight. He’d had a real fault, instead of the inconsequential things he’d brought up in their flirtation, or he’d had a confession he’d never put into words before, even if it’s only the thing Jack guessed when he saw him, the thing Jack knew when he asked to use his name.

“Oh--” Jack does his best to roll with the shift. To… dare a little flirtation of his own, if that’s what’s needed. “I… I would have imagined differently. You have… you have nice hands.”

Very nice hands. Hands he would like to know better. Long fingers. He doesn’t think ‘elegant’ is the word exactly, but he thinks they’re beautiful, he likes the shape of them. He wants to hold one between his own, he wants to brush his lips slow and soft over each knuckle. To know if his hands are warm or cold or some combination, and to know if his touch would be tentative as his gaze or if he would be surprisingly forward once turned loose. To be held in those hands, at his waist or his hips or wrapped around his arm. To feel those hands… to _feel_ them. Perhaps it’s soon to make an overture, it is soon to make an overture, and Llewellyn is nothing if not considerate of his possible need for space, for time, but he wants to _know_ those hands. 

“Well. I’m afraid they aren’t good at anything.” He says, almost apologetic, as if Jack couldn’t think of things those hands would be good at. Even if he’s unversed, there are things those hands could do.

“I’m sure that’s not true. Handwriting may be struck off the list--” He starts, and wonders if he really does dare. There’s an attraction there. Llewellyn had come to see him. He’s offered him space if he needs it, but Jack isn’t a grieving lover, he’s six weeks out from being that, and he could be ready. He’s been lonely. He’s only resisted opening himself up again, but Llewellyn isn’t like men who’ve hurt him in the past, he doesn’t think-- not Owen, who’d honestly tried for him and been the wrong fit, but others… others who were worlds away from what this man seems to be.

“When I said I was clumsy, I mean… I mean it’s my hands, which are-- which are very clumsy.” Llewellyn blurts out, and shows no signs of stopping. Not out of a desire to say any of it, he doesn’t think, he seems so… ashamed of himself, and yet unable to stop. “And I could never-- Not like yours. You… work with them. It requires skill. Strength. The basic ability to… manipulate small objects. And given that your tools are sharp, and that your hands are all in one piece-- two pieces, technically?-- that is-- I would have to assume you are… good with them.”

His cheeks go _red_ , poor thing, for all their earlier back-and-forth he seems to have hit his limit in some way, but… but a compliment is a compliment, and there’s something disarming about his sudden clumsiness at this juncture. 

“And you didn’t come to ask me for anything?” Jack dares. Not so much as to put himself in the man’s lap, he doesn’t think he could be so forward. He doesn’t take his hand. He moves closer, he lets his own voice go husky, he makes it clear enough that he’s offering.

Or, he’d thought he was making it clear. Llewellyn seems to think he’s come on too strong, too soon, mistaken Jack’s willingness for affront somehow. He’s rusty, but he hadn’t thought he could be that rusty. That, and Llewellyn himself must be… beyond merely unversed. Has he never let himself be flirted with before? Jack knows caution, fear, choosing to be lonely because it’s safer, but this… it’s at once so sad, and somehow so alluring-- the idea of being worth that risk when he’s never let himself before, the idea that Llewellyn could find him so fascinating that he might take that leap. The idea that he might be someone’s first… he hopes he would be a good first-- a kind first. His own first kisses, his first fumbling touches which never amounted to much, which never dared pass a certain point, that had been Owen, they’d been friends embarking upon an experiment. But they’d gone their separate ways and had their separate firsts where sex in all its variety was concerned, and Jack’s introductions had not always been as careful or as kind. Not that he thinks he should have waited around for Owen to tumble back into his life, it would have made the pain that much keener when they didn’t work out. But he knows the value of kindness.

“Oh-- no, I… That is-- I am afraid I have a habit of offending… it’s led to a professional transfer before, as I said, I am… difficult to like--”

“I wasn’t offended.” Jack smiles-- or, he thinks he smiles. Sometimes the weight of constantly policing himself leaves a tension so great that what feels like a smile on his face looks like a grim line in the mirror. He means to smile. He means to reassure, though he can’t blame the man for being a little rabbity. He’d been, when he was only beginning to talk to other like men. He’d been scared, on edge. And it had taken him years to learn how to be comfortable even in private.

“And I can see myself out if I hav-- no?” He stops short, his eyes snapping up to Jack’s face, wide and half-hopeful. He knows that as well, struggling with hope against hope… wanting a man to like you, afraid of what could happen if he did, and if you liked him...

“No.” He gives the barest shake of his head. What he hopes even more than before is enough of a smile. 

And the detective… _Llewellyn_ , he takes that small reassurance as sign to… to open up. Not about himself, not about what he may desire from their association, but about the nature of grief. About what commonality they have, with loss. About _Jack’s_ feelings-- how he understands him, how they might progress, how he might heal in time.

“Mm. If you ever need to talk, about the shock or the grief…” He offers, not too hesitant. Buoyed, perhaps, by Jack’s reassurance. “I will do my best not to be… Uncouth. Offensive.”

He has some sense of humor about himself still… a not inconsiderable charm, which… How long has it been, since a man made him _blush_ like this? It isn’t only the flirting, it’s the effect it has on him. He’s been unmoved by handsome men before. Once or twice a man had been charming with him and he’d not been affected, why this man? Why his eyes, the way he flirts? Why does he feel such an urge to flirt back?

“I wasn’t offended. I took it for a compliment. A professional compliment, if that’s how it was meant, which is hardly uncouth.” He says-- isn’t sure if Llewellyn could quite yet take it, if he suggested the detective was free to be as uncouth as he pleases. If he suggested he would be free to take liberties, a man he’s barely met-- and under such circumstances… 

And yet… would he? Maybe just… maybe just hands. Those hands… could he want those hands just once? Llewellyn likes him, likes something about him, maybe just likes the look of him, but would he want more than that? A quick tumble, an experience… would he care to stick around for more? And is Jack so lonely that he’d take it? He might, hands like those. The shape of them, the neatness of the nails. Well-cared for hands. He could take a chance on that, even if it’s not… No one’s ever been what he’s wanted. Owen had tried, but they were only going to hurt each other, perhaps even irreparably, if they’d kept trying. Maybe he should just try to enjoy things as they come, even if they aren’t everything-- maybe he should take the chance and take what’s offered, and for once not keep asking for more than someone else can give. Maybe being wanted at all is something, and being trusted for a man’s first time means a lot even if he isn’t interested in forever. And maybe he’s getting ahead of himself and what they both need most in this moment is a friend.

“I’m glad, then.” Llewellyn says. Hopeful? It’s so hard to read him… but then, that’s some of the attraction. He’s… different. Interesting. Is he different enough, in the ways Jack is from too many men, to want something… something like what he wants?

He doesn’t want to let him go.

There are things that perhaps aren’t meant to be. Llewellyn is apologetic, over the unlikelihood of his becoming a customer, but it’s not his custom Jack wants, it’s knowing him. He must intend to be found _somewhere_ , if he really means that Jack can speak with him about grief again. He’s not at all concerned with whether Llewellyn comes by the shop, if he would rather come by in the early evenings and see him at home, but he doesn’t know how to tell him _now_ that he’d be welcome any time. 

He’s less concerned with anything, than he is with Llewellyn, and the hesitation in his voice as he mentions keeping kosher. Jack isn’t sure how to respond. He doesn’t want to display surprise, he doesn’t want to display the _wrong_ sort of lack of surprise. Even if Llewellyn’s demeanor didn’t make it clear enough, Jack’s not so naive as to know it’s a revelation not everyone reacts well to. But then… he’s always found it easier, to befriend other men who know what it’s like to be hated for something you had no control over. 

He can hide his own, to varying degrees of success. For all that Llewellyn has kept the nature of his desires a closely-guarded secret, it seems he does so because of the law, because of his career, and not because he is afraid to be persecuted. Indeed, early on, hadn’t he said he already knew persecution, for his own reasons? This, then, must be one of them. Twice-persecuted, he’d said, for reasons which had nothing to do with loving men. 

And what else? Among all the flaws he perceives in himself, or has been informed he carries, for which have people taken against him so badly? Jack can’t understand it. How such a charming man, and such a _kind_ man, could be disliked so quickly and so strongly as to say he is twice-persecuted… Whatever truth lurks beneath any humorous exaggeration of his flaws, he had said he was transferred, just because at his previous station he had not been able to be politic or couth with people… and yet at worst he seems awkward, uncomfortable in his skin, and Jack can well understand that discomfort. 

He seems a good man. He seems a _just_ man.

“I would rather not list my own bad points. I have them… And after tonight, you and I have no real business together, and it would be unwise-- But I would rather… Please remember me by my good ones, if you have no other excuse to talk to me. Or discover my bad ones in time. The choice is yours.” Jack says, walking Llewellyn to his door.

“Whether or not you list me your bad points, I would remember your better ones.” He smiles, leaning in the doorframe, hesitating a moment. Perhaps as eager to linger as Jack is to let him, though there is a curfew for the building and he ought to go. “You didn’t have to come back for me.”

“Oh, I disagree.” Jack smiles, around a bitten lip. They are standing in the open doorway, and he knows it wouldn’t be safe, not really, for Llewellyn to kiss his hand, but he hopes against hope just the same, when he holds his out, when he finally feels that hand wrap around his own… 

His grip is firm and solid. His fingers are cold, just at the end, but his palm is warm, and smooth. _Soft_ , hands that don’t do rough work for a living, and yet… and yet he _does_ work, there’s nothing especially easy about his work just because his hands don’t labor. They could come from similar places.

They release each other too soon. A neighbor on her way out, a door he’d heard opening just in time to put on a public face, when he’d wanted to ask if Llewellyn might come again, when he’d wanted to tell him he has beautiful hands, really, and he could find something they would be good at, if Llewellyn only gave him the time.

He watches him go, watches the way he looks back just once over his shoulder, the way he had that very first time… and then Detective Llewellyn Watts is gone, and Jack closes his door and leans back against it.

He’s thinking about his hands, yes. And he’s thinking about the sad and soulful depths of his dark eyes.


End file.
